They Make Good Coffee In Wherever I Am
by obi-glasses
Summary: Limburger's malfunctioning time machine lands Stoker in a strange land of three-eyed women and alternate realities.


_I actually finished this in the same night as "We Are Not Us", but FFNet was blazing shitfuckers CRAZY. So, here's this one, and hopefully it'll only disappear once or twice before staying put._

00000

Jules moaned, rubbing her temples irritably as she paused in talking to the angry Martian standing in front of her.

"So you're saying I'm in.. purgatory?" he asked, his hands on his hips.

"_Limbo,_" she corrected in a exasperated tone. "The realm between the 'real' and 'unreal' worlds."

"And I'm from the 'unreal' world," he said, repeating what she had said earlier.

"Yes." _Finally! We're getting somewhere, _she thought.

"And Limburger's new weapon sent me here."

"Yes."

"Can I get back?"

Jules sighed. "I don't know. I sent in that question to the Temporal Command when you first appeared here."

The tawny Martian sighed back, leaning his weight on his left foot. His metallic tail swished behind him as he looked over her head, apparently considering his options.

"Why can't you fix it yourself? You said you have a great deal of influence.." he trailed off, looking back down at her.

She blinked her three pink eyes, and then remembered saying that to him. "With those below my level.." she shrugged. "You can imagine how much power _they _have."

"Damn," the mouse groaned.

"Temporal Command won't dilly-daddle with something of this importance, but they're busy fixing a weak spot in the North Quadrant. My transmission won't get to them for at least two or three Earth hours. If we're lucky, one hour." Jules sat down at her desk, bringing up the Sol network. "I can, however, hijack a few satellites to make sure it gets there faster-"

"Can you access the 'real' world?" the mouse asked suddenly. Jules turned around in her seat.

"Yeah, I do it all the time." Something inside her cringed at his sudden mischevious look.

"How about this 'internet' you've been talking about? Can you access that too?"

"Yes..." _What are you planning, you dirty old mouse?_ Jules narrowed her eyes at him.

"Now, a series- cartoon series, you were saying- like ours should have something dedicated to it.. shouldn't it?" He sat down in the seat across from her in front of her coffee machine, his tail twisting around the cup she'd made for him earlier and bringing it up to his mouth to take a sip.

"Yes.. there are around five thousand or so fanarts of it on deviantART, if I remember correctly.. four hundred fanfics for it on , one non-defunct fansite-"

"_One?_" Stoker spluttered into his coffee. Jules shrugged.

"Your series isn't as popular as it used to be. Plus, Geocities went down a while ago, so that's killed many a nice little niche site." Jules snorted. "Trust Yahoo to do something like that."

"Nnn," he growled. "What else?"

"One thousand or so English-language videos with 'biker mice' tags on Youtube, three hundred (rounded, of course) videos for the Finnish 'pratkahiiret', and.." Jules blushed slightly. "Don't know how to spell it in Russian yet, but I imagine there's a wealth of videos in Russian. Some in Portugese, Swedish, maybe some Danish too."

"So we've got a decent corner of the webiverse, have we?" Stoker remarked, a smile on his face. "Who's most popular, by the way?"

"You mean the characters?" Jules mentally reprimanded herself for using that word, and relaxed internally when she saw no anger or offense on his face. "Uhh.. I haven't looked into that much, but I think Vinnie or Throttle are the most popular.. Modo's next, then either Charley or .." Her mind drew a blank suddenly, and she grinned, embaressed. "Sorry. Can't remember."

"That's all right, I don't expect you to run polls or anything." The devilish grin came back suddenly as he remembered another question he wanted to ask. "And which _pairings _are most popular?"

"Oh, you're killin' me here, Stoker.." She grinned at his innocent look. "Throttle-Charley and Vinnie-Charley are possibly the most popular."

"Throttle and Charley? Why didn't I think of that?" Stoker took another sip of his coffee.

"I know. It makes sense. Anyways, after that comes Throttle-Carbine, Modo-Charley.. that's a rare one, unfortunately... then of course there's the ever popular 'let's pair this character up with my uber-perfect sickeningly pretty O-C' story.. and then there's the _slash._"

Stoker paid immediate attention when he heard the change in her tone. "What's slash?" he asked warily.

"Oh, Throttle-Vinnie, Vinnie-Modo, Throttle-Vinnie-Modo, Stoker-Throttle, Modo-"

"WHAT?" Stoker yelped, nearly flying out of his chair.

"Calm down, old man, it's _one _story. Then, there's Modo-.. Damn you, you made me lose my train of thought again." Jules grinned at his still infuriated expression. "Of course, somebody did Charley-Primer once."

Stoker blinked and then smiled slyly at the thought. "Impossible, but damn hot."

"You should see the stuff Whipblade cooks up," Jules said.

"Who's Whipblade?" Stoker asked.

"She's a author and a artist. Pretty fair, I'd say." She grinned. "'Course, lookin' at her F-A gallery, one would be convinced that she was partially insane."

"Spare me the details, please. I'm an old mouse, I can't handle so much stress..." Stoker mimed having a heart attack, and Jules laughed.

"Fine, I'll have mercy and only tell you that she had a gender-bended Vinnie flirting with you in one pic."

Stoker's eyes went wide, and Jules knew he was imaging the scene in his minds' eye. Then he chuckled mischeviously and wrung his hands together.

"So what's the fanfiction like?" he asked.

"Crap," Jules deadpanned.

Stoker's face fell. "It's that whole 'more-popular-overseas' thing again, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Most of 'em don't mean to be crap, buuuuuut.." She sighed. "There are a few good ones. Inuficcrzy, Whipblade like I mentioned, Oberoniss, .. -Lou something.. Nightlight's not so bad either. Morning is okay, but her grammar isn't that good. Oh, uhhh.. Girlygeek.. she's okay.. writes too many character-loves-OC stories, in my opinion.. I know there's one I'm forgetting- Oh! Yeah, uhh- The Prodigal Fan! Man, he's good." Jules threw her blue-skinned hands out towards Stoker. "I'm sure there are nice writers in other languages too, but I can't read anything other than Celestial and English." She smiled apologetically.

"And the porn?"

Jules was the one taken aback this time. "Uhhh.."

"You're alone in a office for five hours a day. Don't tell me you haven't looked once." Stoker gazed seductively at her, and Jules was reminded of one of her mentors' warnings about him.

"Weeeeellll... it's.. minimal," she said finally.

"Anything of me?" Stoker asked.

"Yeah, on your hate site," she quipped, desperately trying to steer him away from her weakest subject.

"Hate site?" He looked a little flabbergasted.

"Yeah. You're the only one with a hate site, mind you," she added. Stoker grinned.

"Damn right."

The console behind Jules freeped suddenly, startling the both of them. Jules turned around and danced her fingers across the touchscreen, accessing the new message.

"It's Temporal Command. They've instituted a one-time-only system of getting you back," she said, her voice rising in happiness.

"Great! What do I have to do?"

"Uhh.." She scrolled down further and then stifled a squeak of laughter. "You have to clap your heels together three times and wish for mercy from the Wicked Witch. Domri must be in a good mood today," she said through laughter.

"Damn," he moaned. "Ah, well. It was nice meeting you, Jules. I have a nice amount of blackmail now.." He took her three-fingered hand and kissed it gently. "Now, please turn around and put these lovely digits of yours in your ears, so I can have a tiny bit of dignity."

Jules laughed and did as he asked, deafening herself to Stoker's rebelliously mumbled wish. She felt a soft vibration on her back as the air shuddered, and turned around to see empty air.

"At least he doesn't know about the _new _series," she remarked to nobody.

_He does now,_ Overseer Domri's voice sounded in her mind. _Never say 'at least', Jules.._

She let out a growl of frustration at her mentor's playful admonition.

00000


End file.
